Monthly Archives: September 2003
Pro Blogs and Editing
Posted on September 29, 2003 2 Comments
I’m so far behind the blog news cycle on this story that the New York Times managed to publish a story on this before I did, but I’ve been asked by one of my readers to comment on the “edited blog” fracas involving the Sacramento Bee and a blog run by one of its reporters. […]
Liars
Posted on September 24, 2003 2 Comments
If this isn’t the most-linked article at Blogdex by this time tomorrow, I suspect I’ll have to eat my hat: It’s an alternate history of the Iraq conflict, culled from various proclamations of Bush administration members (I wish it had been annotated). From a purely rhetorical point of view it’s monstrously unfair, but frankly it […]
Small Note
Posted on September 23, 2003
Two, actually. 1. I have subscriptions to both Electronic Gaming Monthly and Smithsonian Magazine, which I suggest puts me well in the running for the hotly-contested Most Cultural Distance Between Two Magazine Subscriptions Award. Feel free to discuss this or challenge me with your own subscription quirks. I dare yas! 2. Speaking of EGM, the […]
Radio, Radio
Posted on September 22, 2003
I did a radio interview for CBC Radio while I was at Torcon, and a snippet of it shows up in this radio program (Real player required). The segment I’m in starts at about the 17-minute mark, so you can fast-forward to that part if you like. I’m the guy making the comment about the […]
Happy Birthday, Heather
Posted on September 22, 2003
My sister is 29 today! And yet she’s my older sister. She’s been 29 for a while. Anyway, wish her a happy birthday, why don’t you.
Fast Reader
Posted on September 22, 2003
I read fast. I’ve never specifically clocked myself at a words-per-minute rate (there’s something a little too needfully MENSA-like about doing crap like that), but it’s fast enough that in college I was able to read every single book (but one) assigned in my class on Joseph Conrad the night before the final, a total […]
My Other Online Self
Posted on September 19, 2003
No less an august personage than my own wife has noted that in the By The Way… blog, I have a distinctly different voice than I do here on the Whatever. Her full realization of this came when I posted an entry about someone criticizing me and rather than laying into him as I might […]
Radio Interview
Posted on September 18, 2003
Wanna hear me on the radio? I’ll be on tomorrow (that’s Friday, 9/19) at 5:20pm (Eastern) on KFTK, St. Louis (97.1), on the Dave Glover show. I’ll be talking about Book of the Dumb. Streaming audio is here. If you miss it, I’ll be doing several more interviews over the course of the next month, […]
Five Years
Posted on September 17, 2003 2 Comments
As of this week, I’ve been writing the Whatever for five years, which makes it the single longest writing “gig” I’ve ever had, if you can believe that. I began it in 1998 with the intent of keeping sharp for writing newspaper columns, because I’d been a newspaper columnist once and was hoping to be […]
Old Man’s War Release Date — An Update
Posted on September 16, 2003
Okay, my fiction agent chatted with Tor and got the new release date for Old Man’s War, which is (drum roll) November 2004. Yes, 14 months from now and 23 months from when the book was initially acquired. That’s publishing for you. Again, let me stress I’m not in the slightest nonplussed about this; the […]
My Secret Vice
Posted on September 16, 2003
I like reading online personals. Yes, yes, yes. I know. My marriage is fine, people. Better than fine, even. You don’t purchase a new automobile (a minivan, no less) with a spouse if you’re looking to trade them in. If I had purchased some sexy expensive two-seater convertible despite the facts of child, large dog […]
The New Car
Posted on September 15, 2003 2 Comments
Here it is. It is a 2003 Honda Odyssey EX. The color is called “Sandstone Metallic,” which is Honda’s way of trying to avoid the word “beige,” and sure, if it makes them happy, fine, whatever. However, I know it is beige and will thus refer to it that way. There were other minivans that […]
Cars
Posted on September 15, 2003
We’re buying a new car today. No, I won’t tell you what it is. You’ll just have to wait. However, one word: Capacious. I’m off to handle the actual purchasing of the car, since I’m the bum in the family and Krissy has to go off to work. However, as promised, she was the one […]
9/11/03
Posted on September 11, 2003
I write about it on my AOL Journal. That’s all I have for you today.
A Coke Out of Nostrils Experience
Posted on September 8, 2003
“Romeo and Juliet is a Goddamn timeless template. I saw it set in Ireland with an all female cast and it still worked, one family was all lesbians and one was all dinosaurs. You just can’t fuck it up. You dab your eyes at the end and wonder what is so wrong about the love […]
Expungable
Posted on September 8, 2003
I just expunged a comment on the previous post where someone posted an advertisement for themselves which was totally irrelevant to the post in question, and then about a week ago I expunged a comment that was nothing more than hyperlinks to porn sites (made somewhat less effective because I’ve turned off html in comments), […]
The Death of a Car
Posted on September 7, 2003
My 1989 Ford Escort Pony (i.e., the low-end variation of the low-end model of Ford’s line-up) has 150,150 miles on it and has chosen this auspicious mileage number to pretty much die upon. Its death has been anticipated for weeks if not months, but today was the day it signaled that the end is near, […]
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Posted on September 5, 2003
I’m making a fairly substantial change at IndieCrit. If you’re at all interested, swing on by.
Old Man’s War Stuff
Posted on September 4, 2003
A couple of things I learned about Old Man’s War while I was at Torcon: 1. Its release has been rescheduled for sometime in the second half of 2004, once again for marketing purposes related to the Tor line in general. I am almost entirely unconcerned. It’s been sold, I’ve gotten paid, and I trust […]
All About Torcon
Posted on September 2, 2003
So, Torcon. To begin, I almost didn’t get there. Stupid, stupid me, I forgot that Canada was in fact a foreign country, so when I showed up at the airport without a birth certificate and/or a passport, they wouldn’t let me on the plane. The good news was that Continental was so kind as to […]
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying